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"Coal Industry's Go-To Law Firm Withheld Evidence of Black Lung"

"BECKLEY, W.Va. -- The stately, wood-paneled chamber in the federal building here unsettled Gary Fox and his wife, Mary. Fox was used to the dusty caverns of the mines in the southern part of the state, where he'd spent more than 25 years working underground in the heart of Appalachian coal country. They had never been in a courtroom before."

"It had been at least 15 years since Fox first noticed signs of black lung disease. It started with shortness of breath. Then a cough that yielded black mucus. By 1999, his symptoms convinced him to apply for federal benefits. A doctor certified by the U.S. Department of Labor examined him and diagnosed the most severe form of the disease, known as complicated coal workers' pneumoconiosis. The government ordered his employer, a subsidiary of behemoth Massey Energy Co., to begin paying him monthly benefits, but, as is almost always the case, the company appealed.

Gary and Mary now found themselves visitors in a foreign world -- one populated by administrative law judges who must make sense of reams of medical evidence, sophisticated legal arguments and arcane rules; coal-company lawyers who specialize in the vagaries of the system and know how to attack claims; and doctors who consistently find cause to diagnose almost anything but black lung."

Chris Hamby reports for the Center for Public Integrity October 29, 2013, in part 1 of a 3-part series, "Breathless and Burdened."